


These Days

by GenitalGrievous



Series: These Days [1]
Category: Speed Racer (2008)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-25
Updated: 2009-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-16 22:10:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1363495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GenitalGrievous/pseuds/GenitalGrievous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Speed can't figure out a world where all the heroes die. Part of a series loosely inspired by the album "These Days" by Bon Jovi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Days

Speed stepped out of the Mach 6 slowly, his knees wobbled as he took a few tentative paces into Victory Lane. His mind was muddled, a kind of deep haze hampered his senses. Something, however, was slowly beginning to work its way through his emotional blank state, like the frantic Aldus lamp of a ship coming into bay signaling the light house, a single camera flash was working through the fog.  
Flash.  
Flash.  
Flash.  
Speed blinked, shaking the stars out of his eyes. He took his helmet off, and suddenly his hearing returned to him in full force. The crowd was screaming, Trixie was running towards him, Pops, Ma, Spritle, and Chim Chim in tow. He became suddenly conscious of the sweat that stuck his bangs to his brow, pasting his leather coat, through the polo he wore underneath, to his slick back. He shook his head, a slow smile spreading across his face, and the drops of sweat send out into the ether grabbed the strobing camera lights and hung momentarily in space, tiny stars surrounding the champion as a bouquet of roses was thrust into his arms.  
Trixie leaned in and kissed him, his lips slowly puckering against hers as the myriad camera flashes increased in intensity. Pops said something about Racer Family Pride. Speed found himself giving a peace sign to the cameras, and with slow hand motions he indicated Sparky, eliciting praise from clamoring reporters for his skills as a technician.  
Speed turned, bowing one last time to the cameras as a path was made open to him, and made his way towards the track’s locker rooms, located just off of Victory Lane. 

Inside the locker rooms he was alone. He sat on the peeling wood bench in front of the lockers and closed his eyes, savoring the muffled effect the concrete walls around him had on the activity outside. He opened his eyes, and slowly withdrew the tattered picture of Rex he kept sandwiched between his jacket and his heart. He allowed himself a gradual smile, forgetting the crowd outside for a moment, and imagined that the serene expression on Rex’s face in the picture was for him, for his victory. He felt a gentle peace encompassing himself, slowly taking into himself, and really believed that Rex was proud of him. With that belief Speed, however briefly, knew that he was fulfilling the obligations of his time on the Earth. 

Outside of the track Racer X was leaning against the Falling Star, savoring the warm smoke of a cigarette as it filled his lungs. On nights like this, cold with the biting onset of winter, he liked to sneak out of his shared bed and be near the tracks where he could hear the final glorified shrieks of the end of a big race. As he listened to the crowds screaming “Speed, Speed” he could feel a fond pride welling up despite his cold exterior. In these moments, embraced by the cold and the grey halo of smoke, he felt like he could keep on going through the motions of life, despite all semblances of tedium.  
He flicked the butt of his cigarette into the asphalt by his feet and ground it out with his leather boot.  
“These days it just gets colder and colder,” Racer X mused aloud, and opened the door of the Falling Star, taking his place in the driver’s seat.

“These days he just gets colder and colder,” Inspector Detector sighed across town in his flat, staring at X’s cold pillow beside his own.  
He rolled over to face the wall, clutching the navy down comforter against his bare chest, and shivered almost deliberately. They had been living together coming on eight years now, ever since a frightened Rex Racer showed up at his door, huddled in his race jacket against the cold of a particularly biting winter. Legally, he was already dead. Legally, nothing had kept Detector from taking the eighteen-year-old into his home.  
During the first couple of years Rex had depended on Detector for everything, and Detector had felt a fatherly sense of pride in saving the boy from the life he had been living with Race Fixers. Slowly, however, things had changed.  
Detector smiled a little to himself, remember the face of then-nineteen-year-old Rex Racer standing in his bedroom doorway, silhouetted by the light from the hallway and whimpering out softly, “I had a nightmare.”  
Against all better judgment he had taken Rex into his bed, meaning only to play nighttime sentinel for the boy, and had instead awakened the next morning, embraced by the youthful body that was only seeking the warmth of his own.  
As the bedroom door slowly opened, Detector closed his eyes and desperately feigned sleep. The bed bounced back as X sat on the edge, removing his shoes. Detector wondered if X could tell he was awake. He thought about X’s joshes over breakfast about the volume and speed of his snores, and painfully acknowledged that he was being completely silent.  
The comforter tightened against Detector’s side and underneath it Detector could feel the cool night air that still clung to X’s skin. Detector inhaled slowly, and he could almost smell the exhaust of the race cars from the track.  
“Are you awake?” X asked huskily.  
Detector made a show of yawning and stretching his body out slightly. “Mm.”  
“Hey,” X said softly, needlessly. He scooted towards Detector under the covers, and Detector could feel his palms, still cold from outside, smoothing down the skin on his shoulders. He exhaled deeply. X gently kissed the base of Detector’s neck, moving up along his jugular. Detector tensed. “Hey,” X repeated, his voice spinning moist heat into Detector’s ear.  
Even though he was trying to feign disinterest, Detector could feel his skin getting warm, and small trails of sweat forming along his hairline and cheekbones. X’s hand slid down his chest leisurely, rubbing back and forth gently over his stomach. Smiling softly, Detector rolled over to face X, who promptly captured his mouth in a gentle kiss. Detector couldn’t help widening his smile, a familiar contentment forcing it.  
However, deep down, even more familiar than his faint contentment was the undercurrent of fear that love wouldn’t last in this graceless age.

At Thunderhead the crowds had dispersed hours ago. As the lights turned off one by one, Speed walked down the middle of the track, absentmindedly watching the grille beneath his feet and the world that was even further below. He came up to the first great jump, fondly reliving a plethora of childhood memories. He remembered watching Rex make the jump at blinding speed when he was a kid, winning the record for the Raceway. The world didn’t seem so far away. “All my heroes have died,” he thought as he felt his heels catch the rough end of the jump as he inched his feet into the oblivion.  
He closed his eyes, thinking about the serene expression on Rex’s face, pressed against his heart.  
“I guess I‘d rather die than fade away.” Speed thought as he hit the track beneath, feeling his bones break. 

Inspector Detector sighed into Racer X’s shoulder as X entered him gradually. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply as X withdrew, and reentered. Detector felt dizzy, adrenaline was clouding his thoughts, he was reduced strictly to the feeling of sweat and friction between two bodies, the way X’s hair felt soft from having worn his mask, the appearance of X’s eyes clenched shut. An image of Rex Racer surfaced in his mind, young and naïve Rex Racer, eyes wide open to the act shared between the two men. X broke his reverie with a bite to his shoulder and he called a climax, semen shooting between their bodies and blending with sweat. “Feels just out of reach.” Detector thought, rolling his eyes back behind closed lids.

Trixie was leaving the Racer household after having spoken with Pops at length. Speed hadn’t come home after the race, instead saying he would go to Inspiration Point with Trixie. She felt her heart fluttering against her leather jacket as she slammed her car door, anticipating a long night.


End file.
